Every Day IPA – Small Batch Brewing

Everyday IPA brewed from the recipe in Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book.

There is nothing quite so satisfying as brewing your own beer. Home brewing only needs to be as complicated as you want to make it. Believe me, the whole process has come a long way since Charlie Papazian wrote The Joy of Home Brewing. I recently discovered the "latest craze" in home brewing called BIAB – brew in a bag. It is all-grain brewing in a bag, in a pot, on your stove. It's very practical when you're making small batches. Which is where the Brooklyn BrewShop's Beer Making Book comes in. All of the recipes are one gallon affairs. I love that! We're talking about 10 bottles. Perfect for someone who likes to brew new and different types of beers. Seriously folks, I am not even going to tell you how many home brews I have in my crawlspace that I will probably never drink, remains of amateur 5 gallon brewing sessions. The beer pictured above I made in January 2012. While brewing, I had some "problems" and spilled a bit of the wort on the floor instead the fermenting container. I just topped it off with some filtered water ended up with about 8 bottles of "small" beer (i.e., low alcohol). And you know what? It was great!

This is a really nice book for the home brewer especially since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of exotic malts and many of the recipes use only two varieties of hops. The Everyday IPA pictured above used American 2-row, Caramel, Victory and Munich malts and Columbus and Cascade hops. Pretty simple. If you are lucky enough to have a home brew shop nearby they probably have all the ingredients you need. If you're interested in this book, I have written a full review on Amazon.

If you have ever thought you'd like to make your own brew, now's the time with easy, modern methods and a fun new beer recipe book. It's really not all that hard!